febraury 14th edition of 2011 mercury edition
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Febraury 14th edition of 2011 Mercury editionTRANSCRIPT
the MercuryThe Student Newspaper of UTD
UTD player makes the best of a bad break
Student directs first professional show
Page 10 Page 7
Vol. XXXI, No. 3
www.utdmercury.com
Comets on ice
Page 6
February 14, 2011
A student gazes down the half-frozen reflection pools toward the center of the SU mall, surrounded by snow-dusted greenery and ice-covered walkways.
photo by Akshay Harshe
Students’ excitement quickly melted as snow and ice kept UTD closed for almost a week, caus-ing coursework and event delays for nearly everyone.
On Feb. 1, the inboxes of all UTD e-mail accounts received the same mass message.
“UTD closed due to
inclement weather,” it read. It was a snow day. Tests
and assignments were dodged as the streets were blanketed with a fresh layer of snow. Snowmen and snow angels came to life as students enjoyed the unpre-dictable Texas climate.
The ice and snow proved relentless. One snow day became two, then three, four and five.
The powdery snow hard-ened into ice and the nov-
elty of staying home on a school day quickly wore off for some students.
It wasn’t fun anymore.“I love a good snow
day as long as it doesn’t last a week,” said Saad Abughazaleh, a marketing junior.
The same e-mails of hiatus continued for the remainder of the week, canceling all
Paul DangContributor
UTD snow dazeStudents take snow days with an icy disposition
see SNOW page 4
Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya (1997): They had news — he was here. For 10 years they had searched for him and until now no one had known where he’d gone. Now they were at the border, so close to see-ing him, yet the registration for refugees seemed to go on forever.
As they walked, led on by the authorities, clustered shel-ters appeared as dots on the dusty horizon, and the vast sprawling
Anwesha BhattacharjeContributor
Israeli flag defaced on Spirit Rock
Students and a UTD police officer inspect the recent defacement of the Spirit Rock on March 31. The rock was soon after repainted, removing both the red paint and the Israeli flag itself.
photo by Ben Hawkins
Since the economic crisis of 2009, low employment rates are no longer startling, but have become a norm.
Hundreds of résumés sent out, constant searching and many failed interviews have become an almost integral part of any job search.
The same can be said for UTD students. According
to a recent Career Center study, the employment rate for the class of 2010 is 80.8 percent.
This rate is a full 10.9 percent lower than the cur-rent Texas employment rate of 91.7 percent, accord-ing to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
With such low employ-ment, students are trying different strategies to find jobs.
Some students, like grad-
uate student Lauren Booth, hope to get a head start many months before their graduation.
Booth will graduate in May, four months away, with a master’s degree in Public Affairs.
She has been seriously job searching since the begin-ning of January.
“(I want to work in) any-
Nada AlasmiContributor
news@utdmercury
Post-grad job questOn the road to conquering the job monster, UTD students differ in their weapon of choice
see JOBS page 5
see SUDANpage 4
The suites in the lower level of the Student Union, or SU, will soon undergo a complete renovation, UTD officials recently said.
The suites have been empty since the Office of the Dean of the Students moved to the new Student Services Building, or SSB, in September 2010.
Darrelene Rachavong, vice president for stu-dent affairs, said the plan for renovating the SU had come up when the proposal for building the SSB arose.
“When we … put the referendum out for the students to vote on, to build (the SSB), a part of the thought process at that point was (that) as this building gets finished and everybody that’s on the first level of the union — (the SSB offices) — would move into this building, we could renovate the lower level for other student activities,” she said.
The students played an active part in the design and thinking behind planning the renovation of the SU, Rachavong said.
“I actually had a com-mittee (of students) and had them vote on what they wanted down there,” she said. “What they finally as a group voted on to put in that lower level is exactly how we’re doing it down there.”
The renovated lower level will harbor Student Media — Radio UTD, UTD TV, A Modest Proposal and The Mercury — Fraternity & Sorority Life, meeting rooms and a reflection room, she said.
Grace Bielawski, Student Government president and politi-cal science senior, said the different student factions that voted for what would go into the lower level didn’t vote for themselves, but for those groups that needed the space on a priority basis.
Dina Shahrokhi, vice president of Student
Anwesha BhattacharjeContributor
Updated SU on the wayStudents play ‘an active part’ in upcoming renovation plans
see SU page 5
HOPEf o r s u d a n
Jok Duop reflects on his past, moving
through Sudan and then to
Dallas. Duop plans to return to Sudan once
he obtains his political
science degree.
photo by
Albert
Ramirez
2 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.com the MercuryNews
UTD Police scanner
The Feb. 1 Student Government, or SG, meet-ing was cancelled due to inclement weather.
The next SG meeting will take place Feb. 15 and will feature a visit from Darrelene Rachavong, UTD Vice President of Student
Affairs, who will speak about further renovations to the Student Union, said Grace Bielawski, SG presi-dent.
Bielawski will also provide a brief parking and trans-portation update at the meeting, she said.
Jan. 23• A male was arrested for an outstanding warrant
• A student was issued a citation for possession of drug paraphernalia
Jan. 24• A Novel Brew employee reported the theft of their products and the
criminal mischief of their serving counter
Jan. 26• A student was issued a citation for possession of drug paraphernalia
Jan. 27• A student was detained and released following a search of his vehicle
during a traffic stop, and prescription pills
• A student was arrested for public intoxication
Jan. 28• Officers were dispatched to a Phase 1 apartment on a report of an alcohol violation
• Officers were dispatched
to the LLC for a domes-tic dispute
Jan. 29• A student was issued a citation for consumption of alcohol by a minor
Jan. 31• A student reported a theft of cash and credit card abuse
The time for scholar-ship application deadlines is fast approaching and one professor has made sure that former mili-tary members have more options.
The Aage and Margareta Scholarship for Veterans of the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars is funded by Aage Moller, a Behavioral and Brain Sciences professor.
Moller and his wife also fund a general scholarship in addition to the scholar-ship for veterans.
Moller said their was no specific moment of inspi-ration for this scholarship but, he saw his veteran students needed help and wanted to give that to them.
“They certainly deserve the recognition for their service to the country,”
Moller said. “Many of them have economic hardship when they come back and they may not be able to get the education that they want and that’s what we wanted to help them with.”
There are two avail-able scholarships, one of which is endowed. Both awards are available to undergraduate and grad-uate students.
The endowed schol-arship is available to all veterans while the other scholarship shows prefer-ence to veterans of the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars.
Boyd Sherbet, Veterans certifying official said in the past veterans who have received this scholar-ship appreciate the recog-nition and acknowledge-ment of the service.
“(Moller) really cares for the veterans and that was his purpose, trying to help
the veterans,” Sherbet said.
Corey Crawford, histor-ical studies junior and Vice President of Veterans of Dallas at UTD, said schol-
arships that come from an individual really help former servicemen adjust
Rebecca DeButtsContributor
Patriotic scholarship offered
see SCHOLAR page 5
Aage Moller created and funds the “Aage and Margareta Scholarship for Veterans.”
courtesy of Aage Moller
First prize for the Business Idea Competition went to Team Rhone for an applica-tion that can turn phones into remotes.
David Evans, computer Science junior, teamed up with Texas A&M student, Michael Ellsworth to market their product.
The application that won the fourth annual under-graduate competition out of 46 competing teams uses Bluetooth to operate and offers more features than the standard fare while keeping costs low.
It offers different view-ing modes. This means, only the buttons needed for the device being used are vis-ible. That way the user can
be sure they’re using the volume for their TVs and not their stereos.
“I’d love it to be a big hit,” Evans said. “When I describe it to people they get intrigued and when I describe the extra features they tend to really like it.”
Evans said he came up with the idea when he need-ed to design a product to market for a class project.
Afterward, he asked Ellsworth to join him in the Business Idea Competition and help him write the busi-ness proposal. Team Rhone is currently designing a prototype and preparing to market it for actual produc-tion, Evans said.
The Business Idea Competition began in
Rebecca DebuttsContributor
UTD student wins biz comp
see BUSINESS page 5
3February 14, 2011www.utdmercury.com Opinionthe Mercury
Editor-in-Chief Jessica Melton
Managing Editor Shane Damico
Advertising ManagerJosh Moncrieff
Graphics Editor Laura-Jane Cunningham
Photo EditorAlbert Ramirez
Sports EditorBobby Karalla
Media AdviserChad Thomas
PhotographersBen Hawkins
Brandon Higgins
ContributorsNada Alasmi
Anwesha BhattacharjePaul Dang
Rebecca DeButtsAkshay Harshe
John D. McCraryMichelle Nguyen
Christopher Wang
The Mercury is pub-lished on Mondays, at two-week intervals during the long term of The University of Texas at Dallas, except holidays and exam periods, and once every three weeks during the summer term.
Advertising is accepted by The Mercury on the basis that there is no discrimina-tion by the advertiser in the offering of goods or services to any person, on any basis prohibited by applicable
law. Evidence of discrimi-nation will be the basis of denial of advertising space. The publication of advertis-ing in The Mercury does not constitute an endorse-ment of products or services by the newspaper, or The University of Texas at Dallas, or the governing board of the institution.
Copyright © 2010UT Dallas
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MAIL:800 W. Campbell Road, SU 24, Richardson, TX 75080-0688
the Mercury
“I stayed in my apartment and took care of my two cats and played with them.”
Hannah WeirLiterary studies sophomore
“I played ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ on my iTouch.”
Michael LeeBusiness freshman
“I did go out and play in the snow. I had a great time with my roommates.”
Jenna MattinglyPhysics freshman
What did you do to entertain yourself
over the multiple snow days?Comet Comments
Just before the onset of midterms is around the time student attendance seemingly hits a low point, but this year the lack of parking continues through the lull.
This isn’t the first time parking has been discussed in The Mercury, but continuing student concerns coupled with the minimal amount of change bring it to attention.
Our student body has increased to more than 17,000, and that’s not counting faculty and staff, most of whom park on campus at some point dur-ing the week. Through the past year we have seen the addition of new lots, but that includes two new areas designated to visitor parking.
Adding a parking garage right now is unreason-able, mostly due to the fact that each space would cost students about $1,000 to buy, but what we have now could be much better.
One of the more frustrating aspects of parking on campus is driving around the smaller lots, such as the Activity Center, SOM or Conference Center, before realizing there are no spaces left before heading around to lots A-D.
What adds to this is that students who pay for gold or green passes can end up parking in remote lots after their already prolonged search for a closer spot.
The result of hunting for a spot for a prolonged period of time can lead to students parking in spots they know they shouldn’t, usually orange, purple or visitor’s lots.
In reality there are no bad places to park on cam-pus. Pretty much anywhere is accessible within 10 minutes, but the way our system is currently set up causes problems.
Calling any kind of parking “remote” immediately places it in a negative light.
Currently the larger lots are filled with potholes and no effort has yet been made to aid the view of the walk toward campus.
In December 2009 a parking panel was assem-bled at UTD to make suggestions about our current system. One of the things they recommended was removing the color passes and designating groups to spots, such as having undergraduates park in lots A-D.
This wouldn’t add any additional spaces, but knowing beforehand what lot to park in and know-ing it’s first come, first serve would alleviate the frustrations of finding out where to park and paying for spots that are unavailable.
While finding a place to park can be frustrating, especially if it’s done on a daily basis, it’s important to keep in mind that if parking is the biggest prob-lem on this campus, we’re probably doing pretty well.
Parking needs progression
Let’s play a game. Pause reading for a second,
assuming you’re on campus, and step outside.
Do a quick headcount. If you’re lucky and it’s a busy hour, there will be people instead of tumbleweeds shuf-fling about. Now take a moment to notice how excited these students are to be here, sing-ing Asher Roth and skipping to their next classes with anticipation glimmering in their eyes.
That was sarcasm.When I first wandered
through the beaming cam-pus of UTD I was somewhat impressed. I’ve always wanted to go to a school modeled after Futurama. To my disap-pointment, I would soon learn this university would be like the title suggests; all looks and no soul.
It seems to me like the majority of the zombies here have one mission: Get in, get credits and get out. UTD has become an academic drive thru.
Good news though, the walk of shame between class-es doesn’t have to be so.
I might be coming off as Mr. School Spirit, but I assure you I haven’t touched my pom-poms in ages. Quite the oppo-site actually, but whenever I look at UTD I see so much potential. I see character. I see all this money and labor that’s been invested into our univer-sity to make it look sexy and voluptuous, only to be draped by monotony.
What’s the point of having an awesome school if no one
sticks around to enjoy it? We just finished building
a new fog fountain, and the only times I ever see students congregate around this state of the art investment are for the occasional game of three-man hacky sack. Money well spent.
If a fog fountain fogs and there’s no one there to appre-ciate it, does it still fog?
Another thing we take for grant-ed is our athletics.
Instead of sports scholar-ships, we have scholarships for chess team. Need I say more? Now I’m not biased towards one or
the other but let’s face it, which has a more prominent impact on the campus com-munity and highlights the school? Checkmate.
Like it or not, after education, athletics and campus activity are likely the main factors for college choice. And while our school has great business and science programs, the cadaver that is our campus life, or lack thereof I should say, is scary. enclosed in a fancy box, but if the setting is Halloween, then that box is a coffin.
Maybe I’m just used to s o m e t h i n g different.
This being my second semester here, I’m still a rela-tive newbie to the campus so I might be taking things out of context. I’ve heard some of the tales from the old war veterans of the school about how it used to be a lot worse than it is and how things have improved dramatically.
I transferred to this little joy-fest from another school
known as UTA, and if you’ve ever been to Arlington, you know how it is.
Arlington is the largest city in the United States without public transportation. That’s fine I guess, since used car lots virtually dominate the city. Arlington has also been crowned the fattest city in America by Jay Leno who did a bit here where he visited the local fast food joints and interviewed the portly deni-zens. They had to build both the Rangers Ballpark and the Cowboys Stadium just to get people to actually go there.
Did I also mention that I had a blast there? I have scars to prove it.
Despite having a much older and unattractive cam-pus than UTD and being per-vaded with homeless people whose shelter resides right on campus, Arlington has come to embrace what it is and celebrate the fact that there is nothing going on. All you really can do is have fun at UTA. That or get mugged at Centennial Courts Apartments in broad daylight.
What UTA does have going for it though, is an active Greek life, one that collaborates with
its athletics.The thing fraternities and
sororities are best at, besides making tacky T-shirts, is pro-moting the school. Fundraisers, sporting events and other campus activities hype the uni-versity and shine the spotlight on the campus and attract potential students. The broth-ers and sisters of our uni-versity are the most involved
students, the megaphones of the campus, filling seats and attracting crowds. That being said, UTD seriously needs to grow its Greek life if it wishes to improve.
The major complaint I hear from the Greeks here are about the stringent rules placed on them. While it’s understand-able for a newer Greek system to be strait-laced, there comes a time where some slack needs to be trimmed.
Restrictions on recruitment and fuss over words like “rush” because of its supposedly bad connotations are unneces-sary. Let the fraternities and sororities have some leeway in their public relations. Don’t put baby in a corner. (Yes, I did just make a “Dirty Dancing” reference.)
Sports and fraternities/sororities work together in a symbiotic relationship creating the pulse in campus life. A good college demands both strong scholastics and an interactive campus community that ties people to it. We need to solve for the latter variable of that equation and building new edifices won’t work.
The way I see it, UTD is in college limbo. It’s not an empty
c o m m u t -er school a n y m o r e , but it’s not one that can boast a vibrant campus life
either without some changes. And while it’s quickly grow-ing and improving, it needs more focus on its Greek life and athletics to develop its campus. Otherwise, it’s just an accreditation institution with vacant fish scale buildings and fog fountains where a college should be — kind of like a bigger ITT Tech, minus the commercials.
Picture of UTD GrayPaul Dang
Editorial Board
Jessica Melton, Editor-in-ChiefShane Damico, Managing Editor
Laura-Jane Cunningham, Graphics EditorAlbert Ramirez, Photo Editor Bobby Karalla, Sports Editor
The Mercury Editorial Board voted 5-0 in favor of this editorial. The board consists of the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, managing editor, graphics editor, photo editor and sports editor. The board will discuss, debate and develop editorial positions on issues affecting the UTD community. We welcome your responses at [email protected].
Opinions expressed in The Mercury are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the university administration, the University of Texas System Board of Regents or the Student Media Operating Board.
Editorial and business offices are in Student Union, Room 2.416. Telephone: 972-883-2286. Mailing address; SU 24, Richardson, TX 75080.
Editorial Board
SNOMGby Laura-Jane Cunningham
What’s the point of having an awesome school if no one sticks around to enjoy it?
expanse of the refugee camp emerged.
Their hearts seemed to beat louder even as their eyes searched for their son and brother. In their minds they saw the face of the 6-year-old they remem-bered and wondered what the boy, now 16, surely must look like.
When he finally appeared before them nobody spoke for a while. They hadn’t thought they would see him again — this young man who had grown apart from his family and friends — a boy lost in the angry swirl of a civil war for inde-pendence.
In the middle of nowhere, with the rugged heat send-ing beads of perspiration dripping down his back, Jok found himself recalling yet another hot day, in his village, 10 years before.
From between the folds of his mother’s skirt he’d watched his two broth-ers being taken away by military men to be trained as soldiers to fight in a bloodied civil war that had claimed the lives of millions of Sudanese.
For years he watched and waited, and hoped they’d come back for him, take him to his brothers. But over time the memory of his brothers faded as Jok’s own fight for survival overpowered all his wak-ing hours. He’d come to believe his brothers were dead.
Now, seven years after fleeing his home to escape genocide sweeping his homeland, Jok stood in front of this young man
separated by a decade of displacement, and real-ized he was looking at his brother while their mother wept in stunned silence.
“For years I thought it would be fun to be taken away with my brothers,” recalled Jok Duop, politi-cal science senior. “Had I been older than my two years, I surely would have gone. Now, I don’t regret it anymore.”
For 22 years, until 2005, South and North Sudan have been engaged in civil war in a power play for resources, and Jok Duop, who is originally from South Sudan, grew up travelling across different provinces of Sudan with his family in search of safe shelters for almost seven years.
“The Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement or SPLA/M was the main group fighting for the independence of South Sudan,” he said. “They said they would take my broth-ers to school, but turns out most such boys were drafted into the army.”
The war started in 1983, but came to his village only in 1991, Duop said.
“We were moving all the time,” he said. “We’d live in each displaced camp for some months, maybe a year. Then someone would bring news of an imminent attack and off we’d go again.”
Between 1991 to 1997 the family moved on foot across South Sudan towards the Eastern bor-der of Kenya. Some of the tribes were quite hostile, said Duop.
“I remember, once we were attacked while on our way, by what must have been a local tribe,” Duop
recalled. “This man travel-ling with us was captured and slaughtered. I was too young to remember details, but even then it was hard to perceive that someone could be killed in such a violent way.”
Until Kakuma, there had been no schools that he could go to, Duop said. Most of the children sat under trees and wrote on the floor while they trav-elled.
“In a refugee camp, life itself is tough,” Duop said. “There is no food on some days, and going to school is not sustainable. I kept myself going hoping some-thing good would happen in spite of the bad weather and no shelters. Those are the seven years of school-ing I had.”
Dallas (2004 – Present): In 2001, Duop’s brother was sent to the U.S.A as part of the Lost Boys of Sudan Program of the U.S. government. In 2004, Duop joined his brother.
Duop’s life is like that of thousands of other chil-dren who grew up in South Sudan.
Peter Kuol, Accounting & Information Management sophomore and Awan De’Kwech, Accounting & Information Management senior both came to the U.S.A as part of the Lost Boys program. They are both excited about the referendum and are sure South Sudan will soon be an independent country.
“I lost my parents ini-tially to the war,” Kuol said. “We have lost 2.5 million people in Southern Sudan alone. All I have are my brother and two sisters. I came here in 2002, and
my brother is here with me, but my sisters are both back home. ”
The war came to an end in 2005 in Sudan with a promise of a referendum for the independent state of South Sudan. The peace agreement stated that the referendum process was to start in 2010.
“The war had been going on for too long between North and South Sudan,” said Meryl Nason, a professor at the School of Economics & Public Policy here at UTD. “The North is mostly Arab while the South is mostly Christian and Animist. The referen-dum was to break off the southern part from the North and end this war.”
The other issues of contention between the South and North Sudan were control of oil bearing regions, representation in the government and equal rights for citizens of South Sudan, Duop said.
As part of the refer-endum process in 2010, six registration centers were opened up by the Sudan Embassy for roughly 10,000 South Sudanese citizens across the United States, Duop said.
In Dallas, the registration center and polling booth was at Royal Lane and Plano Road and registra-tion opened up on Dec. 22. Voting commenced on Jan 9, 2011 and contin-ued until Jan 15. Kuol said
1507 votes were cast from at the Dallas booth.
All the ballots have been sent to Sudan, said Duop.
The results of the refer-endum are due Feb. 14, Duop said. He said his friends from South Sudan are all expected to have voted in favor of an inde-pendent South Sudan.
Duop said after he grad-uates he would like to get a master’s degree and return to South Sudan where he wants to help in leading his country.
“It will take a long time for us as a new country to get there in terms of eco-nomic and political struc-ture,” Duop said. “All our leaders know is to fight. You can’t rule civilians with military rule.”
Nason said that the key thing to South Sudan’s success as an independent nation in the region is to ensure its economic viabil-ity.
Duop said that democ-racy, building schools and social and health-care pro-grams are essential build-ing blocks for the country’s future.
“For medicines for malaria, people need to travel for thousands of miles, and even then it is not affordable,” he said. “If we look at the U.S.A. of today and take out any one aspect of living here — electricity, healthcare, education, shelters, this country will collapse into
a disaster. It’s the same there. It will be important that these (amenities) are in place so the burden on the new government can be reduced.”
Duop said he wants to return to Sudan when independence is declared this summer.
“Back home, people are not advanced technologi-cally,” he said.
He speaks to his parents on phone, he said, and they still cannot believe something like the phone exists and it is their son they can hear on the other end.
Awan has his mother back home but lost his father to the war. He said he speaks to his mother on the phone regularly, now that they have phones back in Sudan.
Duop has not been back to his village home of Taktat since 1991, and his parents don’t live there anymore either, he said.
“Most of the people I grew up with are not alive anymore,” Duop said. “Sometimes I wonder how this happened and what I bring to the table that God’s kept me alive. When I came here first I wanted to be a business admin-istrator. Then I thought what use was a business manager back home? So I chose political sciences instead, so that someday I may be of use to my society.”
4 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.com the MercuryNews
Illustration by Laura-Jane Cunningham
UTD students Peter Kuol, Awan De’Kwech and Jok Duop are originally from Sudan and in favor of the country splitting to aid peace through the nation.
photo by Albert Ramirez
SUDAncontinued from page 1
classes and events until fur-ther notice. For some stu-dents, the weather proved to be more of a hassle than a blessing.
“I missed my intermedi-ate accounting test which I really needed,” said Jimmy Cardoza, an accounting junior.
Students will have to make up for a week’s worth of lost time.
“My exams are being pushed back, and we are still going to cover all of the material stated on the syllabus which means that we will have less time in between (each exam),” said Wendy Rabadan, a psychol-ogy senior.
As the absence from school complicated course schedules, transportation became hazardous and cars cautiously teetered along icy roads to thwart colli-sions.
Abughazaleh chose to avoid the frozen streets.
“Gets boring, not being able to drive anywhere,” he said.
Even those at home weren’t always safe from the frigid draft.
“Our power went out,” Cardoza said. “So did our water.”
The ice eventually thawed from the asphalt and lawns. The university resumed nor-mally Monday, Feb. 7, with only traces of white remain-ing as a reminder of the break.
But the cold made a comeback. Sleet crept in before the dawn of Wednesday, Feb. 9, and ice found a familiar home on the streets. Classes were cancelled once again.
The encore would be briefer than before, and students like Abughazaleh didn’t welcome it.
“Too long”, he said in regards to the ongoing hia-tus.
Professors and students returned to their duties again on Thursday, Feb. 10, resuming classes after the wintry intermission.
SnOWcontinued from page 1
Accounting students Jinson Jose, Jennifer Rauschuber, Diane Henry and Dariel Dato-on won first prize and $10,000 at a national accounting competition in New York. This was the first time UTD competed in this competition, and the team of students became three out of 64 groups who pitched the ideas of a roof garden and LED lights for the best way to promote sustainability.
courtesy of Diane Henry
Accounting team takes $10 grand and title
1991: Jok Duop and his family fled their village (Taktat) when the village came under attack from warring factions. His older brother and one of the Lost Boys was killed fighting for the army.
1993: Duop and his family left behind their province of Jonglei, and crossed into the South Sudanese province of Central Equatoria.
1995 : The family moved to Eastern Equatoria, heading towards the Kenyan border. They met people who had not even heard of the war and crossed through areas of hostile tribes.
5. 2004: Duop came to live with his brother in Texas.
1997: The family entered the Kenyan border and was housed at the Kakuma refugee camp where he attended school for the first time in his life.
Jok’s journey
www.utdmercury.comthe Mercury News 5February 14, 2011
thing in Human resources,” Booth said. “I have experi-ence in recruiting, employee relations, training and devel-opment.”
Booth said she hopes to get a job by the time she graduates.
“You hear about how bad the work market is,” she said. “I just hope it won’t take long (to get a job).”
Other students, like alum-na Mariam Dirbashi, have decided to opt out for small-er jobs and wait for their dream career, a job in their field.
Dirbashi graduated spring 2010 with a degree in Arts & Technology, or ATEC.
“I want a job in anima-tion or as an illustrator,” Dirbashi said. “ I would say (my degree) was not very practical and is only good for people who are very talented and have a good portfolio.”
While in school, Mariam worked part-time at Richland College Testing Center. When she graduated she searched for an ATEC-related job for two months but stopped searching after she got her second part-time job at a small architectural company.
“I think I will start again to look for a job in my field,” she said. “It will most prob-ably take a long time (to get one), maybe three to six months.”
Untill then, Mariam said she works on an art proj-ect every now and then to improve her portfolio.
One aluma who has land-ed a job is Taneska Lewis, a 2010 graduate with a degree in business admin-istration.
Lewis works as a policy analyst for the North Texas Transit Authority, or NTTA.
One of the things she does is monitor and review state and federal transportation legislation.
Lewis said she worked part-time at the NTTA before graduation but her interview for the full-time job was like that of any other applicant.
“I had to prove I was ready for a new position,” she said.
To get her job, Lewis developed answers to pos-sible interview questions in advance.
“If they would ask why
they should hire me, I would give them actual reasons based on my experiences,” she said.
While the job search pro-cess can be long and tiring the Career Center offers tips and tools to give students and alumni a head start and compete effectively for a job.
Regina James-Dorsey is a Career Center coordina-tor who helps students and alumni with résumé build-ing.
Dorsey said professional
résumés can stand out by being relevant to a job posi-tion.
“An employer does not connect with a generic résu-mé,” Dorsey said. “You have to put a little work and cus-tomize it for a specific job description.”
Relevant experience is experience that relates to the job a student is apply-ing to. It is not necessarily work experience and should be put at the top of the résumé, Dorsey said.
“Say you’re a finance
major and you are treasurer of your organization. That is relevant experience,” Dorsey said. “That should be put at the top of your resume.”
Online trading broker, Fidelity Investments, is a company which has hired UTD students in the past. Cynthia Howell, college relations manager at Fidelity, provides advice of her own.
Howell said that profes-sional conduct with the pos-sible employer is important.
“Be professional, not causal, in conversation,” she
said. “Don’t say things like ‘yep’ and ‘nope,’ have a professional e-mail account and leave professional voice-mails.”
Howell recommends not having phone interviews in loud, distracting environ-ments. She says first impres-sions are key, and can be made by giving firm hand-shakes and by keeping eye contact.
For more information contact the Career Center at 972-883-2943 or at [email protected].
illustration by Michelle Nguyen
JOBScontinued from page 1
Government and political science senior, said that the best part about the reflec-tion room is the amount of student input that has gone into creating it.
Rachavong said that the reflection room would be at the end of a long hall-way leading up to it, with stressful words written on the walls easing into more peaceful words and in differ-ent languages.
The request for the reflec-tion room came to her sev-eral years ago, Rachavong said. She gave a copy of the proposal to The Mercury. The proposal states the pur-pose of the room “for stu-dents to use in order to release stress,” “meditation and self reflection” and for “building stronger commu-
nity spirit through cultural understanding and aware-ness.”
The proposal describes the structure, provisions and furniture that the reflection room would need to have to be conducive to prayer.
Rachavong said she remembered the request for the reflection room, and all the requirements in the pro-posal were taken into plan-ning the room, including the colors and the layout.
Gene Fitch, dean of stu-dents, said that the budget for the renovation project is $1.1 million and the budget will not be cut down in view of the recent budget cuts that the university has had.
Fitch and Rachavong said the design of the lower level will be edgy, creative and contemporary.
Briana Lemos, assistant director for Greek Life, said the Greek chapters were all
very excited about their new office space. The renovated lower level will have, for the first time, a ritual room that will be shared by all the chapters. The storage areas will also be accessible to all chapters, she said.
“Our SOF group which is currently in the North-west corner (of the SU) near The Pub will move over to Student Media where The Mercury is now and the SUAAB group will move into where the SOF is now,” Fitch said. “There’s been some requests from Food Service to use that space (which will be freed by the UTD Radio in the lower level of the SU) but that’ll be up to the Union folks to decide.”
Rachavong said Student Government had been asked and they chose not to move.
“We talked about mov-
ing into the SSB even before moving downstairs,” Bielawski said. “The main thing (about our current location) is its proxim-ity to the meeting room and Galaxy rooms and it’s so much easier to just go across the hall for a meet-ing.”
Shahrokhi said that although it is her last semes-ter at school, it gives her a sense of pride to be a part of the plans for the SU renovation.
“I think it’s more exciting to be part of the change than experiencing it,” she said. “It’s more powerful.”
Rachavong said the designs have been com-pleted by the architects and that construction is sched-uled to begin by the end of March so that all the student groups can move in to their new spaces before classes begin next fall.
SUcontinued from page 1
This rendering depicts the revamped lower level of the Student Union which will house a reflection room, Greek Life, meeting rooms for students and Student Media. Construction is slated to begin at the end of March 2011.
illustration by Laura-Jane Cunningham
to civilian life. Crawford said it is a
relief to come out of the service and have Veteran’s Affairs take care of former service members when it comes to education.
This kind of schol-arship, he said, is an extension of that.
“Besides the govern-ment and things like the G.I. Bill, it’s still nice to
know there are people that appreciate the ser-vice and the sacrifice and the commitment they (former service mem-bers) made.” Crawford said. “Scholarships like this often let veterans know that their actions aren’t forgotten and the sacrifices they made (are) being recognized at home.”
More information about these scholarships can be found at utdal-las.edu/student/finaid/scholarships.
SCHOLARcontinued from page 2
2007 and is hosted by the Institution for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UTD. Nancy Hong, coor-dinator of the event, said that the competi-tion is not meant only for inventions.
Students are encour-aged to submit a range of applications from ideas to business plans.
Hong said everything from iPhone apps to Internet security ideas are submitted.
When all entries are submitted, a panel of successful entrepreneurs judges them.
“It’s a huge opportu-nity. How many times would a regular person get to present a busi-ness idea to people who are themselves entrepre-neurs and in the posi-tion to help?”
First place winners are awarded $4,000 and a month’s free rent in an office to help market their product.
In addition to these prizes, winners are also awarded another
$1,000 to fund Team Rhone’s attendance in another competition of this kind.
Evans said the $1,000 has been very helpful. Team Rhone will soon attend the intercolle-giate business competi-tion at the University of Nebraska.
“The Business Idea Competition allows you to put an idea to paper and allows you to have people go through it and give you a lot of feedback,” Evans said.
Hong said. “I think we as a university and student body need to really take advantage of (this) expertise while they’re on campus.”
BUSINESScontinued from page 2
David Evans
6 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.com the MercuryNews
Courtesy photo by Kedar Manekar
wonderland
Bicycles near the library are covered by snow after a snow storm on Feb 4. UTD closed for 5 days after the winter storms.
photo by Akshay Harshe Students walking through phase 5 parking lot during snow storm on Feb. 4.
photo by Akshay Harshe
Courtesy photo by Kedar Manekar
Courtesy Photo by Kieth Demele
Left to right: Graduate Student Thanneermalai Narayanan gets hit with a snowball thrown by graduate student Koteshwar Reddy.
photo by Akshay Harshe
Students wait for the bus after the snow storm hit on Feb. 4. Services were cancelled a few days later because of the icy road conditions.
Winter
7February 14, 2011Arts&Lifewww.utdmercury.comthe Mercury
A UTD professor’s family legend has become a movie in progress, tied to big names in the film industry.
The movie, adapted from the book, is scheduled to shoot on Feb. 20.
It touts up-and-coming actors such as Shia LaBeouf (“Transformers”) and Tom Hardy (“Inception”) in its cast.
Matt Bondurant is in his second year of teaching lit-erature and creative writing at UTD.
“I don’t think I started seriously writing until I got my master’s degree,” he said.
Despite a modest start as a writer, he quickly received recognition for his work. The professor’s first novel, “The Third Translation,” was stamped as an inter-national bestseller, nar-rating the escapade of an Egyptologist.
His following novel hit a lot closer to home.
“The Wettest County in the World” finds its ori-gins in family lore regard-ing Bondurant’s grandfa-ther and his two brothers’ moonshine gang.
Scenes of gritty violence permeate the tale of the outlaw trio as they defy Prohibition laws of the 1920s.
After the death of the professor’s grandfather, Bondurant’s father began genealogical research which unearthed a trail of newspaper and magazine articles covering the late Jack Bondurant’s involve-ment in a shootout with federal officers and a trial underscored by corruption and conspiracy.
“I was thinking about writing that book for more than 10 years,” Bondurant said.
The story, however, was still incomplete and mostly speculative.
Blanks were yet to be filled in and Bondurant had to find answers at the source: Franklin County, VA.
“There was a peculiar kind of culture in history about moonshining in the South,” Bondurant said. “In places where it was very popular, it was seen as not just a common activity, but almost a sort of pride. Franklin County developed a reputation of a place where everybody did it.”
The author inquired into the town’s history, but said his foreign presence did not appeal to locals.
“It’s a very small, closed community and I didn’t grow up there,” he said. “I was an outsider on the outer edge, trying to get in and trying to get people to talk to me.”
Bondurant eventually gathered enough informa-tion to thread a plotline together.
“I was able to connect events together like a con-stellation,” he said.
Working only with records and reports of crimes he had to develop characters with motives and reasons behind their illicit actions.
It wasn’t Bondurant’s intention to portray his rela-tives and the moonshiners of the South as ruthless profiteers.
“I had to tread a line,” he said. “I was very cognizant of not making them out to be horrible people. They were good people doing bad things, people that made bad decisions, but
ultimately good people.”Bondurant’s sensitive
portrayal of his characters was eventually beyond his control.
The rights to “Wettest County in the World” were first sold to Columbia
Pictures. “When you sell the rights,
you sell the rights,” said Bondurant. “It’s out of my hands now.”
Australian director John Hillcoat, who directed Cormac McCarthy’s “The
Road,” would have teamed up with Australian screen-writer Nick Cave in the adaptation of the novel.
With word of Shia LaBeouf playing Bondurant’s grandfather Jack, Ryan Gosling playing Jack’s older
brother Forrest and Scarlett Johansson as Maggie, the film was destined to be a big budget blockbuster.
Then the recession hit.
Paul DangContributor
Prof novel enters Hollywood
“The Wettest Country in the World” details Matt Bondurant’s family history in the prohibition era. While it’s his second book, it’s the professor’s first venture into film with starts such as Shia LaBeouf taking roles.
photo by Christopher Wang
Cars packed with illicit substances flying through town, as gangsters lean out of the windows and take shots at the police cars barreling towards them. This is the kind of scene one can expect to find dripping all over the pages of “The Wettest County in the World.”
Set in Franklin County VA., during prohibition, literature and creative writing professor Matt Bondurant’s second novel chronicles the life
and times of his pater-nal grandfather and two granduncles as they took part in one of the largest bootlegging operat ions in America.
The cen-tral plot of the book is framed by a fictional account of the southern author Sherwood Anderson and his time spent in Franklin County as he attempted to investi-gate the famous “Great
Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935” and the
surrounding p e o p l e and places i n v o l v e d with it.
T h e events of the book are set against the beauti-ful back-drop of rural Virginia, but
the exclusive moonshin-ing community draws a veil over the inner workings of the people who live there, setting a mysterious and ominous
tone as the southern author pursues the elu-sive “Bondurant Boys.”
As Sherwood is forced to finesse his way into the good graces of the people he hopes to explore, he finds a tight knit community with plenty of secrets worth keeping, and the notori-ety of the bootleggers at the center of them grow to mythic proportions.
Throughout the character driven story, Bondurant skillfully for-mulates the identities of
John D. McCraryContributor
Real-life bootleggers make a great read
see MOVIE page 9
see BOOK page 8
Coffee cups, flannel shirts and skinny jeans are the best ways to spot this PhD candi-date who is literally running the show.
Danielle Georgiou is choreo-graphing her first professional work, “Love and Vices” at the Teatro Dallas Feb. 12 and 19, which she created using both her own and others’ experi-ences in relationships.
“It starts off with this couple arguing,” Georgiou said. “It’s this really combative, violent argument that I think pret-ty much everyone has gone through when you’ve been (in a relationship) so long and you can’t figure out why they don’t get you or the things that you do.”
She said her show is meant to be an argument and uni-versal take on relationships, involving seven pieces broken up into two acts.
After the initial fight the couple works it’s way through their antagonistic relationship.
“The girl wants out, but she cant figure out how to get out,” Georgiou said. “The guy will do anything to get her back, and eventually you find out he’s been actually been with other women and
so it gets a little twisted. It’s a beautiful love story and at the end he leaves her for another woman.
A combination of live danc-ing and prerecorded film, Georgiou uses multiple media to convey her message.
During the first piece the featured couple can be seen on screen getting all the moves right, but in reality they can’t stay in sync. Georgiou said it symbolizes the way a relation-ship can look perfect and be idealized to the outside world, but in reality it’s falling apart.
Throughout the perfor-mance the male role changes from a good boyfriend to an awful one, but Georgiou said he represents any male figure throughout women’s lives.
In one piece he leaves a dancer alone in bed, while she thinks he’s just gone to get breakfast and be right back. When she realizes he’s gone, the dancer goes through a rollercoaster of emotions and at the end of the scene she rips out her own heart and eats it.
“People say it’s this feminist piece, but it’s not,” Georgiou said. “I just thought it would be funny.”
Georgiou said she hopes her audience can find the humor
Jessica MeltonEditor-in-Chief
‘Love and Vices’ to showcase relationships, burgers
The upcoming UTD play titled “Permanent Collection” promises to be a bold discussion of race and gender.
“Permanent Collection” tells the story of two coworkers, one black and one white, who accuse each other of racism and discrimination in a soci-ety where racial politics are hotly debated and stereotyping is both common and accepted.
Chinweolu Greer, an actress in the play, said that “Permanent Collection” challenges the audi-ence to not judge people by their appearance.
Greer said that she always wanted to be an actress but was at a time thwarted by what other people thought of her.
“You have people tell you that you don’t have the look for it based on their interpretation of what an actor should look like,” Greer said. “That kept me away from doing it.”
When Greer came to work at UTD two years ago, she saw a play and remembered her call-ing.
“I remembered, ‘ah this is what I want to do,” said Greer. “My confidence is coming back to life.”
Greer is an Arts & Humanities student and hopes to one day become a play director.
Jonathon Horne, who plays the part of the African American, has been acting professionally for more than 10 years.
Horne said that working on “Permanent Collection” has been both a vibrant and enjoy-able experience.
“I love working with young actors and teach-ing them,” Horne said. “I get the joy of being a
Nada AlasmiContributor
A play on appearances
A dancer from “Green Light,” one of the pieces from Danielle Georgious multimedia show.
courtesy of Danielle Georgiou
see DANCE page 8 see PLAY page 9
Commentary
8 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.comArts&Life the Mercury
In Channing Tatum’s new film “The Eagle,” Tatum plays a Roman officer in search of a relic lost by his father and with it, his family’s honor.
While his journey takes him across Hadrian’s Wall into wild Celtic Britain in search of the prized “Eagle of the Ninth,” he does not manage to find anything that makes for an original or entertaining movie along the way.
The film, based on the book “The Eagle of the Ninth” by Rosemary Sutcliff, is directed by Kevin Macdonald, “The Last King of Scottland,” and “State of Play,” and costars fellow rising star Jamie Bell and veteran Donald Sutherland, as well as a small appearance by Mark Strong.
With a cast this scant all eyes fall to Tatum to carry the audience through the film, and he manages to do so with his unwavering blank face and perpetually indif-ferent voice. The plot is so simple it’s suffocating and offers little need for variation from stern Roman officer to stern Roman traveler.
Despite a script that required little to no substan-tial acting from its cast, new-comer Jamie Bell manages to convey some authenticity with his part as the resent-ful but loyal slave until his character takes a completely contradictory and almost
nonsensical turn. Tatum brings little to the
table in terms of original-ity, but isn’t the only one to blame as everyone on set appears to just be going through the motions.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on Roman culture, but for whatever creative reason the powers that be opted out of implement-ing accents, which gives the entire period piece a sense that the cast merely slapped some dirt on their face, threw on some armor and got in front of a camera.
The lack of effort made to capture the feel of the time was a constant distrac-
tion until the film moved into the Scottish highlands where it simply didn’t matter any-more.
The plot does manage to flow along smoothly with-out too much dawdling, but d i s a p p o i n t -ingly the action sequences are brief, sparse and cut so that they are effec-tively incoher-
ent. Tatum and Bell both bring
an impressive and youthful vitality to their fight scenes, but sadly they all end before any sense can be made of what’s happening on the screen.
The one new trick that
Macdonald brings to a genre that has an impressive and intimidating legacy is the surprisingly fresh look of his shots. The movie oscil-lates between functional and bland to surprisingly creative and impressively aesthetic takes.
Ultimately though, outside of a completely out of place conclusion, the best I can say for “The Eagle” is that the whole experience is relatively painless but certainly nothing more than that.
If you want to watch a movie about Roman esca-pades in Great Britain you’d probably be better off rent-ing Clive Owen’s “King Arthur.”
John D. McCraryContributor
‘The Eagle’ falls shortRoman adventure turns out surprisingly bland
After shooting his new movie “The Eagle,” Channing Tatum sat down with Mercury contributor John D. McCrary to answer some questions about his experiences during filming.
Q: What was the hardest part about filming for this movie?
A: If it looks cold I promise you it’s a thousand times colder. It’s a weird thing that Jamie (Bell) and I kept laughing at that… as soon as they would yell action you could stop shivering for a few seconds. It was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done…
This was hard, just mentally and spiritually, to know every single day that you were going to be soaking wet, head to toe and freezing, and without anything warm to wear. By the end of the shoot we were wearing wetsuits under everything.
Q: How was working with [Jamie Bell]? What do you think he brought to the table?
A: I think his quiet sincerity. He’s so smart and he has such a wit to him.
You wouldn’t believe how funny he is because he really plays… reserved characters. I don’t know why but I think for some strange reason people end up playing against type…
[Also] he’s so unbelievably athletic as well. He’s oddly enough from that area of the world that’s close to Hadrian’s Wall. I think they were about 40 miles away from where Hadrian’s Wall would have been.
Q: Where did you film?A: Budapest and Scotland. Yeah, it was Budapest
for the fort stuff. I think just [because] lumber is really cheap there.
We built the fort there and shot about the first 15 minutes there, and also the [Villa]. All that was done in Budapest and as soon as we go over the wall the rest of it was shot in Scotland
Q: What sort of training did you have to go through to do the movie?
John D. McCraryContributor
Q&A with Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum (right) seen caught in an obstacle during his search for a family relic in the Roman time-period movie, “The Eagle.”
courtesy of theeaglemovie.com
Commentary
“They say nothing’s definite in Hollywood,” said Bondurant. The producers l lost interest and the project was ditched.
Clay Reynolds, the head of the Creative Writing depart-ment at UTD, is a veteran novelist and no stranger to an author’s fickle relationship with Hollywood. His books have been optioned on and off for the past two decades with no films resulting.
“Hollywood’s a black hole,” said Reynolds. “You just keep pouring energy into it and nothing comes out.”
Having published many books himself, Reynolds has become accustomed to vola-
tile nature of the film indus-try.
“You’re dealing with people that are exceeding flaky,” he said about Hollywood. “Some films will be made and never released, some of them will never be shot and some will be halfway done and then fall apart. I’ve made 10 or 12 trips to LA.. to finalize a deal that still fell apart.”
The fate of the film was uncertain.
Fortunately for the profes-sor, interests in the film were resuscitated.
The film was recently scooped up by Sony Red Wagon Entertainment, an indie studio, which meant a lower budget film. Gosling and Johansson have since dropped out of the cast to be
replaced by Hardy and Jessica Chastain. LaBeouf, however, was still attached to the lead role despite the decrease in pay.
“The actors are taking very little,” Bondurant noted. “Which in a way is great because that means they love the film and that means it’ll be good.”
At this point, Bondurant said he maintains a hopeful yet detached interest to the film.
“I really try to not worry about it too much,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do and when it comes out it’s not my book. It’s a different art object created by somebody else.”
Reynolds is familiar to the writer’s minimal role in film.
“Very few authors get cre-ative control,” Reynolds point-
ed out. “The least important person in a motion picture is the writer.”
Despite the inevitable changes made to the novel, Bondurant said he appreciated how the script remained true to the story and its characters.
“I wanted them to be faith-ful to the book, and I think they mostly were,” he said. “In the end I’m pretty happy.”
The professor said he main-tains a positive attitude regard-ing the unforeseeable outcome of the movie.
“If it stinks it’s not my fault,” he laughed.
An experienced Reynolds remains skeptical towards the film industry but sends the best regards to Bondurant.
“I wish him luck,” Reynolds said.
BOOKcontinued from page 7
in her work, but admits it sometimes may be as a result of confusion.
In the second act there is a piece called ‘You Don’t Like It, You Love It” in which Georgiou dresses up her female dancers in male drag and then has them romance not women, but hamburgers during their lunch hour.
“They start to smell the food and the music transitions from ‘Office Space’ music to ‘I’ll Make Love to You’ by Boys to Men, but before they can eat the burg-ers they have to seduce them,” Georgiou said.
“If you watch the music video to “I’ll Make Love to You,” I kind of recre-ate it with burgers and glow sticks.”
The inspiration for this piece stemmed from real life experienc-es where Georgiou said she remembers count-ing down the minutes to lunch, but because of a slight beef allergy and health conscious attitude she was never able to eat what she really wanted — a ham-burger.
“Some people have told me after they see that piece they can never eat a burger again,” Georgiou said. “But you should eat a burger, eat one for me.”
DANCEcontinued from page 7
“The Eagle”
5 / 10
9February 14, 2011www.utdmercury.com Arts&Lifethe Mercury
his ancestors as he jumps from the stoic lives of one brother to the next.
One of the initial plot points concerns the mid-dle Bondurant brother, Forrest, as a couple of thieves attempt to rob him of a large cache of bootlegging money and cut his throat.
Somehow, he man-aged to walk through a blizzard to a hospital 12 miles away with his neck cut to ribbons, and how is left entirely up to specula-tion.
Rumors spread and rep-
utations grow. From that Bondurant
manages to bring his read-er into the inner workings of one of the largest ille-gal liquor operations of Prohibition’s America.
As Bondurant weaves together the limited his-tory, family lore and his own propensity for fic-tion, he creates some-thing wholly unique.
In the aftermath of Forrest’s incident, the novel begins to meander as Bondurant attempts to accurately depict the lives of these men living in 1930s Virginia.
A great deal of the story is spent on painstaking detail of the less roman-
tic aspects of their lives, which makes for honest characters, but not always exciting ones.
His elegant and vibrant prose establishes the insu-lar community and real life characters with truth-ful and stunning intimacy, but the lack of urgency in the central plot causes a great deal of the story to feel like a lengthy tour of a fascinating and danger-ous place.
Ultimately, the payoff is worth it as the characters rise to the larger than life expectations Bondurant establishes for them.
What is left are a cou-ple of outlaw brothers soaking in realism and
yet still captivating and immense.
A unique opportunity and entertaining piece of Americana, Matt Bondurant’s “The Wettest County in the World” makes for an excellent read and an expertly crafted account of three men who very well could be, and in many ways deserve to be, ranked amongst the most noto-rious and impressive of America’s outlaws.
MOVIEcontinued from page 7
A: Obviously horseback riding and swordplay, and I’d done martial arts before… but really just I ran and ran and ran. Kevin [Macdonald] didn’t want me to look like I had, you know, muscles from the gym.
These guys didn’t have very sophisticated diets. They ate whatever part of the world they were conquering at the time. They carried grain because it wouldn’t spoil so easy and that’s really about it.
They’d hunt and fish and whatnot. It’s not very diverse whatsoever.
As much as they marched and build and marched and built, I don’t know how they weren’t just like skeletons.
Q: Now that you’ve had an opportunity to play in comedy and drama, which do you enjoy more?
A: Probably drama, just because it’s more comfortable. Comedy is scary… I’ve only done it once really.
I was in “She’s the Man” but there I played the straight guy.
And now I’m about to jump off the cliff into a really really broad comedy with “21 Jump Street” so we’ll see ,but I have Jonah Hill.
He’s always aces and spades, so I’m sure he’ll take care of me throughout that whole thing.
If all else fails he can be funny and I’ll just run into walls and do stupid things…
I just feel more comfortable with drama and with reality and trying to figure out where the real is in the characters.
And I hear that works in comedy as well, but it’s still a little foreign to me.
Q: You’ve had a chance to work with a lot of really great directors over the last couple of years. Do you have any aspirations to get behind the camera?
A: I do actually and I want to start soon so I can fail early. There’s a novel that’s being adapted right now by a guy that actually did part of “The Fighter.”
He’s not well known. He’s only written a couple dif-ferent novels. His memoirs which is “What’s Left of Us” is kind of like “Requiem for a Dream” meets “Cuckoo’s Nest” meets “Death of a Salesmen.”
It’s set in Boston, in Lowell, and so it’s pretty intense. I would like for me and my directing, production partner to direct that. Not sure if I want to be in it… but not really positive it’s possible at this point. But yeah, I defi-nitely do want to at this point.
Q: Favorite Roman era movie?A: I gotta stick with Gladiator.
Q&Acontinued from page 8
teacher without the bureaucratic problems.”
Bill Hass plays the part of Greer, the white man.
“(Greer) is stiff but does not think he is and can be brash at times,” said Hass. “He is single, has no kids and has nothing in his life but (his job).”
While the play is a drama, it also includes elements of comedy, said Hass, who works as a professional actor in the Fort Worth Area.
“If you are expecting to go and sit there with just a straight face, expect to be pleasantly surprised.”
Venus Reese, associ-ate professor of Arts & Humanities, is directing the play.
She said that the play is
an opportunity to discuss things about race that are not said, but often felt.
“We live in a culture where people are afraid to discuss things about race as they are afraid to hurt others,” said Reese.
Reese hopes “Permanent Collection” will help its watchers learn that it is OK to discuss topics like race and gender openly. She also hopes it might eventually set in motion an African American Studies Program at UTD.
“Permanent Collection” performances are 8 p.m. February 17 - 19 and February 24 - 26 in the University Theatre.
Admission is free for everyone on Thursday night, and all performanc-es are free to students with a Comet Card.
For everyone else, tickets are $15 per person.
PLAYcontinued from page 7
The roles of race are brought up and questioned by UTD play, “Permanent Collection.”
photo by Ben Hawkins
“Wettest Country”
8 / 10
10 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.comSports the Mercury
Joseph Killgore’s collegiate baseball career didn’t start the way he had hoped.
The Greenville Christian School product enrolled at LeTourneau University in 2008, where he started as a freshman but had a measly .255 batting average, much below the expectations of a high school All-State player.
His sophomore year showed no signs of improve-ment. He started again and hit an even worse .246 on the season, a far cry from his expectations heading into college.
LeTourneau University was playing weak opponents and did not have the same type of success as UTD. Killgore felt like he was playing down to the competition.
“I wanted to play at a higher level,” Killgore said. “I feel that coming to a stronger team allowed me to raise my game.”
Competition had always brought out the best in him. He constantly plays games on the field and in the weight room, pushing both himself and his teammates.
When he was fed up with mediocrity, he transferred to UTD, but it wouldn’t be easy here. He was replacing Cody
Ross, an All-American third baseman.
Killgore was a struggling junior, brand-new to UTD and trying to fill a hole on his new team left by one of the best players at his posi-tion in the country.
Break a leg, Joe.But he didn’t get the break
he was looking for.In early October 2009,
the infielders were practic-ing fly ball, pop up and trouble area drills. Killgore had already caught a ball over his shoulder. He was earning a starting job.
It was near the end of practice, and a coach hit another pop up.
“I turned and ran, and I lost my sense of where I was on the field,” he said. “I was sprinting and all I could see was the ball, and then the ball hit my glove.”
Pop!His cleats were caught in
the chain link fence he had just sprinted into, but his upper body kept going. Both his tibia and fibula snapped completely in half. When he looked down, half of his left leg wasn’t where it was sup-posed to be.
The bone was at a right angle, and it was almost pushing out of his skin.
“For five or six seconds I don’t remember what happened. I was yelling,”
Killgore said. “The trainer had to come out and pick up that part of my leg and line it back up and put it into an air cast.”
His stomach was cut open from the collision with the fence, his ribs were bruised and his leg was in pieces.
A few teammates carried him to his truck and drove him to the hospital. The next morning, doctors put four screws and a titanium rod into his leg.
Welcome to UTD, Joe.
The struggleAs a kid, Killgore didn’t
start playing baseball until coach pitch, and never played on a travelling sum-mer team until he was 13 or 14 years old. Instead, he played in city leagues and spent the summers at home with his family.
He also played wide receiver — he was named first team All-State — and golf at Greenville Christian School. But baseball was his strength, earning All-State honors before enrolling at LeTourneau University.
After two years of strug-gling, he made the switch and became a Comet. But, instead of breaking his streak of inconsistency, he broke his leg. In half. It was
Player gives new meaning to ‘break a leg’
Senior Joe Killgore led the Comets in batting average last season, hitting .424. The scar from his leg surgery is still visible 16 months after the surgery.
photo by Ben Hawkins
Bobby KarallaSports Editor
Baseball player recovers from tibia/fibula double fracture to have career season
see KILLGORE page 11
The Lady Comets (13-3 in the ASC, 17-4 overall) are in second place in the ASC East division with a two-game lead over Mississppi College (11-5).
The Lady Comets trail Louisiana College (15-1) by two games. Louisiana defeat-ed the Lady Comets Jan. 22 in Pineville, La., and will visit Richardson Feb. 12 for a match that could decide the cham-pion of the East Division.
Head coach Polly Thomason is not looking that far ahead.
“We’re not looking for-ward. The East is so tough,” Thomason said. “Anybody can beat anybody on any given night, so we have to take care of business one game at a time.”
The loss to Louisiana came at the end of a six-game road trip. The Lady Comets will play six of their final seven games at home.
“One of the strengths of being on the road is you knew you had to be focused,” Thomason said. “I hope now being at home, we don’t lose that edge.”
During the gym bleacher construction, the team prac-ticed at SMU everyday through Winter Break and at the begin-ning of the semester.
Along with having to focus to win, Thomason said her players had to maintain physi-cal and emotional toughness to work through the circum-stances and thrive on the road.
“They could’ve packed it in,
but I think they really respond-ed,” Thomason said. “They got to practice and worked out. I’m very proud of the way they responded. It could have been a hindrance but they didn’t take it as one.”
The Lady Comets’ team defense has been their strength this season. They are second in the ASC in scoring defense and fourth in defensive field goal percentage, something Thomason said was the team’s goal from the start of the season.
“We knew that defense was going to be something we had to focus on. We didn’t know what kind of weapons we would have offensively,” Thomason said. “We play good team defense. Our team has bought into it, so we’re proud to lead the conference in (defensive) points per game. We love it. That’s definitely what we want.”
While the defense has per-formed well, the offense has at times struggled. Thomason said the Lady Comets must control the tempo on both ends of the floor to find oppor-tunities to score on offense.
“We have to get teams to slow down. We’re a smart team,” Thomason said. “We know when to burn a defense. We just don’t have a lot of players that are scoring. We’re methodical with what we run and how we run it.”
Tarneisha Scott and Lyndsey Smith are the two main scor-ers. Both are in the top 10 in scoring in the ASC. Scott, a post player, has been able to score effectively because of the threat Smith and Tawni
Ichimura provide on the out-side, Thomason said.
Ichimura and Nikki Kosary are in the top 10 in assists in the ASC. Thomason said the guard play is extremely valu-able.
“Nikki has done an excel-lent job at the point of find-ing the shooters and running our offense,” Thomason said. “Tawni has such great court vision, she understands the game and she’s had a great scoring year as well.”
Thomason said maintaining effective ball movement and improving on team rebound-ing could mean a conference title for the Lady Comets.
“If we can get some rebounding, we’ll be in good shape,” Thomason said. “I think we have everything we need to win the confer-ence. We’re just missing the rebounding.
“I think we’ve done a really good job of distributing the ball,” she continued. “All of our players are pretty smart basketball players, so we need to continue playing as a solid group.”
The Lady Comets’ next two games are against the high-est-ranked East teams beside themselves. Thomason said the team would love fans to come and support the team through the tough stretch leading to the conference tournament.
Note: All statistics and records are as of Feb. 11… Both the men’s and women’s games against Mississippi College, originally scheduled for Feb. 10, have been moved to Feb. 14 at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. due to weather.
Bobby KarallaSports Editor
Lady Comets face top division rivalsWomen’s basketball team, in second place, prepares to face top two opponents in East
Above: Tarneisha Scott puts up a shot against East Texas Baptist University’s Holly Phelps at the Activity Center. Scott, a senior, leads the ASC in scoring at 17.9 points per game.
Left: Tawni Ichimura dribbles up the floor against East Texas Baptist University at the Activity Center. Ichimura is third on the team in scoring (11.9) and leads the team with 3.3 assists per game.
The Lady Comets have won three straight games, and play third-place Mississippi College and first-place Louisiana College in their next two games. Both games will be played at the Activity Center, where the Lady Comets are 9-0 this season.
photos by Ben Hawkins
11February 14, 2011www.utdmercury.com Sportsthe Mercury
the first time he had ever broken a bone, and he was out of school for a week.
His teammates were the only people he knew at the school, and he couldn’t even see them.
“I sat at home miserable. I couldn’t move, I had to keep my leg up,” Killgore said. “It was my first semester here, so I was just getting to know the teachers and it was right around midterms. The doctor said we’ll take it day by day.”
The recoveryIn this case, “day by day”
meant six to seven months. That’s how long an injury like this normally takes to heal for men Killgore’s age.
Six months after October is April. The season started in February. He would probably miss the entire season, even if he healed on time.
Instead of making new friends, building a rapport with professors and becoming accustomed to life at UTD, his leg was shattered, potentially along with a season of eligibil-ity and the rest of his career.
He was away from the team, he couldn’t walk and he couldn’t play baseball.
When things seemed like
they couldn’t get worse, Killgore went back to the doc-tor a couple weeks later. To his relief, the doctor said it looked good. The bone had started fusing.
There was still a knot the size of a ball on his shin. He had a long way to go, but this was a start.
He used crutches for the first time to navigate UTD’s campus a week after the injury. After limping around campus for two months, something unex-pected happened.
In December, he put on a shoe and started running.
“It was a blessing. It was a miracle. I can’t explain it,” Killgore said.
The doctor said Killgore could be back by March.
Practice started in late January, and Killgore was on the field and ready to go.
He pinch-hit in the first two games, missed one and then started every single game for the rest of the season.
The junior that limped through two years at LeTourneau and around UTD’s campus for a semester ended up having a season to remem-ber instead of one to forget.
He hit .424 with a .488 on-base percentage and had a .390 average with runners on base.
He led the team in hits and
doubles, and was second in RBI and total bases.
Looking forwardThe leg appeared to have
healed fine. The doctors told him he’d never break the leg again. The rod makes his leg 10 times stronger than bone.
“I gained full strength back into it, and I’ve gotten back to the speed I was at before I hurt it,” Killgore said.
Heading into his final season as a Comet, Killgore smiled looking forward to 2011
The Comets start their 2011 campaign in Arizona, and will play two teams that were in the College World Series last year. Others are nationally ranked. Killgore said he’d love the team to go at least 3-1.
Competition brings out the best in him.
He can talk for minutes about the pitching and the rest of the offense, but says he’d hit .200 if it meant the team won. He doesn’t think about himself.
“It feels good to be a part of a big-time offense. We’re gonna hit the ball,” he said. “The process of situational hitting is engraved in our minds. We know how to hit behind guys and get them over. We’ve got a really strong team and it’s the best team I’ve ever played on.”
An X-ray of Joseph Killgore’s leg. His tibia and fibula were completely broken in half, and another bone in his foot broke, as well. This X-ray was taken shortly after his injury in October 2009.
courtesy of Joseph Killgore
Men’s ASC East Basketball Sandings
ASC Rec. Overall Rec.
UTD 12-4 16-5
East Texas Baptist Univ. 11-6 14-6
Louisiana College 9-7 10-10
UT Tyler 9-8 10-12
Mississippi College 8-8 11-10
Univ. of the Ozarks 3-13 6-15
LeTourneau Univ. 0-16 1-20
Women’s ASC East Basketball Standings
ASC Rec. Overall Rec.
Lousiana College 15-1 19-1
UTD 13-3 17-4
Mississippi College 11-5 16-5
UT Tyler 8-9 10-12
Univ. of the Ozarks 7-9 11-10
East Texas Baptist Univ. 5-12 7-14
LeTourneau Univ. 1-15 2-19
Note: Standings reflect all teams’ records as of Feb. 11
KiLLgorecontinued from page 10
We played 17 minutes in the first half without our top player. It was amazing that we did that and it’s a real trib-ute to Carter, Kyle and Dmitriy. Some of those young guys are doing a real good job helping us.
— Terry Butterfield on UTD vs. eTBU
We were off for a week and you could definitely tell. Then they just kind of woke up and started play-ing our basketball.
— Polly Thomason on UTD vs. eTBU
Editor’s note: Here are some noteworthy comments from the coaches after both UTD basketball teams defeated East Texas Baptist University.
12 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.com the MercuryClassifieds
HOUSING
T h e N o r t h Central T e x a s
Council of Governments serves as the Metropolitan Planning Organiza-tion for transportation and is seek-ing Interns to support geographic information system and database activities related to the Transporta-tion Improvement Program (TIP).
The TIP document contains federal, state, and local transportation proj-
ects in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.Applicants wishing to be considered for a position should apply online at:
https://mycogcareer.silkroad.com/
Roommate wanted in Large House with Students and recent Grads. Shared ar-
eas include Kitchen, Living Room, Din-ing Room, and Bathrooms. Large Yard
and Deck. Mostly a Quiet Place.No Smoking.
No Pets.Richardson near campus.
Call David at 512-310-0720
JOBS
13February 14, 2011www.utdmercury.comthe Mercury Comics
Thai-larious by Pennyworth
Yellow snow is not lemon scented by Michelle Ngyuen
The First LARP by Laura-Jane Cunningham
Math puzzle
Try to fill in the missing spaces using numbers 1-9 to complete the equations for every row and every column. Each number may only be used once.
*Remember multiplication and division are performed before addition and subtraction.
Math Puzzle solutions online at www.utdmercury.com.
Instructions:
Workspace:
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+
3 20 7
9
6
2
/
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+
+/
+
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Stuck on you by Alison Kwong
14 February 14, 2011 www.utdmercury.comAdvertisement the Mercury